Education Reforms ala Taliban

This is what happens when you lose focus and assume too much:

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/f730f2bc93d54d5f012deef9c29f8664.htm

LASHKAR GAH, 2 October (IRIN) - Schools in southern Afghanistan are closing in large numbers due to pressure and intimidation from the resurgent Taliban movement, leading to an education crisis in the volatile region, officials say.

Almost 150 educational institutes have closed in Kandahar province alone, according to the education ministry. Regionally more than 50 schools have been attacked this year.

"Some 145 schools are currently closed in Kandahar and more than 70,000 students, including boys and girls, are deprived of education," said Mahbobullah Khan, an official from Kandahar's education department.

The end of Taliban rule resulted in a concerted national and international campaign to get the nation's education system working again. By December 2005 an additional 5.1 million children were being educated. Most impressively, 1.5 million girls who had been discriminated against under the Taliban returned to formal learning, according to UN figures.

But much of that optimism has now been lost. Currently, due to fear of attacks, the doors of some 330 mixed schools have been closed in Kandahar, Zabul and Helmand provinces alone, according to Saifal Maluk, head of education in Helmand province.

And it's not just the south where primary education is suffering. "More than 200,000 students are shut out of schools across the country because of school closures due to fear of attacks," Deputy Education Minister Mohammad Sadiq Fatman told IRIN from Kabul.

This is not just cross-border stuff anymore. They're back.

Lycius said:

This is precisely why communism failed in Afganistan and it's precisely why democracy will fail there.

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Democracy will fail there because helping the Afghan people wasn't the goal in the first place. I know that's what the administration likes to say, but the proof is not in the pudding.

We overthrew the Taliban primarily to send a message to the rest of the world that if you are a nation who allows terrorists to seek and find a safe haven within your borders, we can remove you from power if we so choose.

Not a bad message, per se, but unfortunately we've also sent a message to radicals that even the most powerful nation on the planet can't destroy them, and can only really slow them down for a little while.

McDuff said:

I'm in favour of the racetrack, but only if the racecars have rocket launchers on them. It would be like a computer game I once played where your cars had spikes and rocket launchers and if someone was in front of you you could be all "hey, rockets for you!" and you blew them up and then you were totally in the lead. That was a lot of fun. We should do that.

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Geez. That sounds even more dangerous than that Afghan sport where they ride around on horses fighting over an animal carcass...let's do it!

I don't want to interrupt the discussion of which vehicles are the best to hurl watermelons or animal carcasses from , but I have a few more observations of the growing situation in Afghanistan.

You may be asking yourself, "Why in the hell would the Afghan people allow the Taliban to reinfiltrate their society again, knowing what this will mean as far as repressed freedoms and the like?"

While the Taliban did profit from poppy production during their rule, they also severely limited the cultivation of such, eventually bringing it down to less than 10,000 hectares by year 2000. Since their overthrow, cultivation has increased annually, now spreading to around 165,000 hectares. While there have been some efforts by the Coalition to eradicate growth, only a fraction of the annual crop has been destroyed, and the profits from the balance are finding their way into the pockets of the Karzai government, making future eradication efforts even more difficult.

Due to these factors, the Taliban saw an opportunity and made their move. They have been providing security to the farmers and facilitating the smuggling of product for a few years now, and have established huge zones where they can operate freely. Now that their power base is entrenched, they are not only facilitating poppy production, they are controlling it, and have circulated leaflets proclaiming, "Grow poppies or die." Thanks to the growing impact drug dollars are having in the government, the Taliban is now able to weild influence there, as well.

The school closings represent more than just random acts of terrorism, they are red flags that herald the rise to power of dedicated and focused entity. The fact that the current government and its supporters are unable or unwilling to arrest these developments is an unfortunate signal to the populace of where their allegiance should be directed, if they and their families are to survive the coming years.

It will be much more costly now to allocate resources to counter this threat than it would have been a few years ago, but without a renewed and concerted effort to stop this phenomena all of our sacrifices will have been in vain, and re-invading a narco-state will be considerably more difficult and deadly than our previous rout.

Bird of Prey said:

The circumstances you've outlined are not insurmountable, SC.

Crop dusting.

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It's been done some already, and it caused a huge outcry amongst the populace. Fruits and vegetables also destroyed, villagers showing up at hospitals with strange ailments stemming from toxins, etc. Nobody took responsibility for it, and rumors that it was done by rivals have circulated, but the end result is the Afghan government is staunchly opposed to dusting. Look at the amount of money actually expended vs provided:

http://www.gao.gov/htext/d0778.html

Table 2: Fiscal Year 2005 Counternarcotics Assistance to Afghanistan
Administered by USAID and State by Pillar as of June 2006 (in
millions):

Pillar: Alternative Livelihoods (USAID);
Provided: $180;
Obligated: $162;
Expended[A]: $117.

Pillar: Elimination/Eradication (State);
Provided: 258;
Obligated: 204;
Expended[A]: 69.

Pillar: Interdiction (State);
Provided: 65;
Obligated: 44;
Expended[A]: 2.

Pillar: Law Enforcement/Justice Reform (State);
Provided: 24;
Obligated: 17;
Expended[A]: 2.

Pillar: Public Information (State);
Provided: 5;
Obligated: 5;
Expended[A]: 1.

Pillar: Total;
Provided: $532;
Obligated: $432;
Expended[A]: $191.

Source: USAID and State.

So much for "emergency" funds being needed. I wonder where the other 341 million went to...

Bird of Prey said:

I don't know, SC. We need a revamp. A third party. . . .

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Something needs to change. This kind of happy horseshit might make a good soundbite, but it makes me want to throttle somebody:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/afghanistan/

Afghanistan Is Making Significant Progress

Today, The Taliban Have Been Driven From Power, Al Qaeda Has Been Driven From Its Camps, And Afghanistan Is A Free Nation.

Afghanistan has a democratically-elected President and National Assembly.
Afghanistan's parliament includes 91 women, and President Karzai has appointed the first woman to serve as a provincial governor.
The Afghan economy has doubled in size since liberation, and since 2001, Afghanistan has attracted $800 million in foreign investment.
More than 5 million Afghan children are in school – and about 1.8 million of them are girls. The United States has built or renovated 681 health clinics across the country.
More than 4.6 million Afghan refugees have come home in one of the largest return movements in history.

MattW said:

Is there a way we can get the poppy growers to pick a fight with the cocaine producers in Colombia? It would be ugly, but surely diminish both sides.

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Knowing our luck they would probably just pool their resources and establish an inter-hemispheric distribution network. ;(